Shimla. The Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Tuesday approved a bill reducing the number of wards in the Shimla Municipal Corporation from 41 to 34. The state government had to reduce the number of wards as a large number of people filed petitions in the court against the delimitation. Deputy CM Mukesh Agnihotri tabled the bill in the House for discussion and concurrence and said that the government has decided to set population norms based on the number of voters in each ward and adopting a uniform norm across all municipal corporations in the state. It has been decided to reduce the number of wards. He said that the State Election Commission has issued the notification for Shimla Municipal Corporation elections on Monday itself.
The Deputy CM said that the government has already brought an ordinance to reduce the number of wards and it will be replaced by this law. He said that to reduce the number of wards in Shimla Municipal Corporation from 41 to 34, the Himachal Pradesh Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill 2023 was introduced in the House on Monday.
Agnihotri said that the Bill has been brought up for the approval of this House today, however, the notification for the Shimla Municipal Corporation election has been issued yesterday and voting will be held on May 02, 2023. The previous BJP government in the state had increased the number of wards from 34 to 41. The rationale behind reducing the number of wards from 41 to 34 is that each ward has a population of about 4,987, which is ideal.
Himachal Pradesh has five Municipal Corporations including Shimla. Shimla Municipal Corporation with a population of 1.6 lakh and 34 wards, Solan Municipal Corporation with a population of 47,418 and 17 wards, Dharamshala Municipal Corporation with a population of 53,543 and 17 wards, Palampur Municipal Corporation with a population of 40,385 and 15 wards and Mandi The Municipal Corporation has a population of 41,375 and 15 wards.